Johnny Depp

Still working the European front, Johnny looked very dapper as he was seen leaving his hotel and on the red carpet in Paris last night.

The reviews of the movie are coming out too, and they are - as usual - a mix bag. One thing shines through though, and that’s Johnny’s performance in a role he’s well used to playing - the dark, mysterious rebel.

Yum.

BuzzSugar says: As we experience a recession, we watch a story in which the protagonist robs banks in the midst of the Great Depression — should we be rooting for this guy? Depp makes us want to, that’s for sure, but what with all the bloodshed, it’s hard to always think that what Dillinger’s doing is cool. Public Enemies actually makes us think about this stuff, and making us think is more than most of the big Summer movies can boast.

They continue to say that while they love the story, an the choice of lead actors in Depp and Marion Cotillard, the filmmaking itself made them queasy with random close-ups and “herky-jerky” camerawork. They weren’t a fan of the makeup either, as it was to easily making them remember that it’s a story, all make-believe. It ended on a positive note, however, stating the film is an “intriguing thrill-ride with a little bit of heart and the sharp, intelligent Johnny Depp to lead us through it.” They give it 4.5 stars (out of five.)

EW has similar thoughts, giving the movie a B- rating. Their problem seems not to be with Johnny as the “effortlessly elegant, intriguingly self-contained stars on the screen today” portraying Dillinger, but that at the end, you never get to know Dillinger at all, and they couldn’t get a feel for the bank robber himself, stating in the end that “Public Enemies re-creates clothes, but doesn’t fully fashion the man who wore them.”

I dunno about you - but Johnny Depp can lead me ANYWHERE, and I’ll be happy to follow along!

Some lucky fans have finally gotten to see a sneak peek of Sweeney Todd! Here’s an excerpt from a review by Steve Biodrowsky over at Cinefantastique.

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Got a sneak peak at SWEENEY TODD on Tuesday, and it is absolutely fantastic - one of the best things Tim Burton has ever directed! The movie is pretty much your dream of what it would be, when you first heard that Burton and Johnny Depp would be turning the Stephen Sondheim musical into a movie: it’s a dark, brooding horror-musical-comedy that hits all the right notes.

Depp casts aside the over-the-top antics of Jack Sparrow for a much more self-contained performance as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, in which the emotions (primarily a lust for revenge) ooze up to the surface in controlled bursts; without ever blunting the character’s razor-sharp edge, the actor demands that we sympathize and root for Sweeney as he slashes his way through half the throats in London. Alan Rickman is wonderful as the hypocritical Judge Turpin, whose machinations drove Sweeney to madness. Sacha Baron Cohen shines in a small role - you don’t have to be a Borat fan to enjoy his work here. A special mention must go out for Timothy Spall as Beadle Bamford, Turpin’s right-hand man - a perfectly wrought performance of a slimy character who mistakenly believes himself to be slick and smart. Hopefully, the Oscar academy will not overlook him next year even though his role is not of the showy, melodramatic kind that usually draws attention.

If there is a flaw in the movie, it is that the cinematic storytelling occasionally short circuits the musical nature of the source material. The acting performances, through close-up camera angles and cutting, convey the point of some scenes long before the songs wrap up, as when Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower) first lays eyes on and falls in love with Sweeney’s daughter Johanna (Jayne Wisener), who is kept a virtual prisoner in Turpin’s mansion. Judging from the reaction and comments after the screening, fans of the musical will be pleased that the film is faithful to Sondheim, but SWEENEY TODD might have been even better if it had jettisoned more of the stage version, which on a few occasions feels like dead weight slowing the movie down.

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I don’t know about you, but it’s nice to finally have my impressions of the movie confirmed by someone who has actually seen it! I can hardly wait for December! I’ll share more reviews as I find them.

More movie news at Movie Review Report

Johnny Depp, Depp, Sweeney Todd, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Tim Burton, Alan Rickman, Sacha Baron Cohan, Timothy Spall, Cinefantastique